Author: Team Logue

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Good morning everyone, I’m joined with Alanna Stephen from Escarpment Law and we’re having a Starbucks just reviewing some of the tips and tricks that you need to consider when buying or selling a home.

I get asked quite often, ‘do I really need a lawyer when I’m buying or selling a home?’ And my automatic answer is, ‘yes of course’ but I love to give people the details as to actually why.

I can understand why people ask that question. A lot of work is already been done at the beginning they’ve seen their mortgage person they seen their agent I’m the end service provider. So I like to bring everything together We liaison really well with the agents with the mortgage people that we pull all the details in but most importantly what we do is we make sure ‘are you getting what you think you are getting?’ Are you selling only what you need to be selling?’ We protect your rights under the agreement of purchase and sale. We check title, we do something called execution searches, we make sure there are no liens on title and the key thing is protecting the client and making sure on closing date there are no surprises.

There is nothing worse than us finding out as agents that all the sudden there’s a $50,000 construction lien against your property and the lawyers missed it. Right or we weren’t advised of it. I love that with your clients you meet with them well in advance and give them the full rundown of: here is where the funds are going to go to and that you’ve done those checks.

We can certainly try to, we can’t always due to a number of circumstances but certainly I will be in contact with them I always advise clients to reach out early if possible we open the file we get moving we discover problems early on and then we can deal with him quickly in a headway fashion and get them resolved. I think that’s the real key is you’re hiring a lawyer upfront to make sure that you don’t have any problems So many people think of lawyers as a problem solver and I love that you’re already ahead of the problem. So our clients always rave about you. You’ve literally cut out the problems ahead of the time because you’ve time to deal with the other lawyer, deal with the other agent or deal with whatever that issue is. Thank you. Thank you, that’s great.

So one other thing that came out the other day that was kinda neat and I was chatting with you about it and that is deposits. How do deposits work when I’m buying a house in my agent says I need a $50,000 deposit. What does that mean? So the deposit acts as a security for the contract so you sign the agreement, the buyer then provides the deposit. That deposit gets held not with the buyers agent, but with the listing agents real estate brokerage. For the buyer what that means is they now owe that amount of money LESS to the seller on closing date. For the seller it means that that amount of money, if it’s $20,000 will be applied to reduce the commission that they owe their agent. That’s a good understanding. So if you’ve paid that $20,000 deposit you’ve already paid out towards the purchase of the house. Absolutely that’s money to your credit. So I buy a $820,000 house I’ve made it at $20,000 deposit I still owe $800,000.

Sometimes it gets confusing and it is a little fearful to think that you have to come for the big chunk of change and how does it work in the longplay. It does and especially that the deposit disappears right away it’s gone and no one seems to be quite clear where it’s going to resurface again. Right so if we were speaking to any buyer/seller today to make for a smooth transition what would you advise? Definitely get in contact with the lawyer, pick a lawyer take your agents recommendation early and reach out to that lawyer. The lawyer is going to have an opening letter for you and hopefully if it’s my office that you’re dealing with, we have a closing checklist really easily and comprehensively through the process. My biggest tip though would be if you were trying to buy and sell don’t try to do it all on the same day. Consider bridge financing and your agent, your mortgage person can talk to you about how that factors in. But the bottom line being: you buy before you sell and it makes for a single transaction. So your warning people that same day, ‘I close my house and move out and I move into my new house’ it doesn’t always go as beautifully as everyone would like it to go.

It surely does happen, I’m not saying that it can’t be done because it is done all the time but what ends up happening is a deal could fall apart which jeopardizes the deal on the other side but more practically speaking when the deals do come together, clients are not getting their keys for new home until very late in the day. So if you’re buying and selling same day you will not have your keys until late in the day.

And as an Agent I’m gonna say we can’t control when our clients get the keys. Now we do harass lawyers regularly and I get it’s always good to check with a lawyer when those keys are coming. Absolutely. On a side note we do always recommend to our clients when their meeting with you if they need to update their wills that’s a great opportunity at that time to do it and we’ve dealt with a lot of international buyers and sellers that you can easily advise on some of the tax issues there as well. If clients have a will, it’s not invalid just because its old. So what we like to do is meet with clients and go through the will and see is everyone still alive in the will? Are there instructions still the same? Powers of attorney are also important and we can talk about all of that in context of estate planning. Bigger issues I think you’re alluding to, if you have people who are living out of country and there selling property or living out of country in buying property those are all things that need to be discovered early on the process so that we can direct people accordingly.

Perfect. Well I thank you for today and I think the big takeaway here for people who don’t be scared the lawyer you’re not the dentist. We are not the dentist the sharp tools are in the drawer and that’s where they stay. You can give great advice on preparing for buying or selling right out of the gate.

So thank you so much.

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Is it time for that afternoon tea or is it time for an afternoon Starbucks I’m here with Andrea McQueen of Andrea McQueen Designs in her beautiful home Does this make you want to redo your home or what? This kitchen and family room makes me want to redo my home always. We’re always redoing your home. Thank you for joining us today I just want to walk people through why it’s so essential to have a designer to have that confidante when purchasing or selling or when planning to stay forever what you know what avenues they should take with regards to investment pieces versus non investment pieces and where to start.

So many of our clients come to us at this time of the year and wonder ‘where do I begin?’, like where do I start peeling back the lemon and it can get scary really fast. So where do we start? And how do we budget for it and how do we make it all come together?

Great questions, all really good questions which we talk about all the time. The first thing I think to consider is engaging a professional really early on in the process because you don’t know what you don’t know right and because we’ve been through this and this is what we do for a living and this is what we do on the daily basis we know what you don’t know. I think it’s really important to start early and engage a professional early on and a professional is going to help you determine the scope of your project so really it’s a good idea to have an a number in mind when you’re thinking about a budget but in my experience take that number that you’re thinking about and as a rule of thumb don’t hate me for saying this on camera, and I double it. Double it in our experience because there’s certain considerations when it really what you want to do to your home is what’s gonna drive the budget you know and there’s you can always go higher end or lower end or make trade-offs but I think what’s so important is something that I know you see all the time is to think about when you’re considering a remodel or a redesign or you know a renovation project it’s not just to think about the end result in the end picture and it’s not just flooring it’s not just you know the cabinets it’s not just the appliances really what makes a well-designed space feel good and look good is the way all of these different design elements work in harmony and we’re trained and we’re really experienced in where it’s a you know the great the places where it’s makes sense to invest and the places where it makes sense to save. At the end of the day working with the designers going to save you money because you’re going to invest your money in things that are going to give you the best return on your investment as you know oftentimes they’ll come in to a client site after they’ve already started and they’ve spent $30,000 on their bathroom floor you know and they haven’t touched the plumbing or you know window treatments so you can take that budget and do an entire bathroom so we’re really good at giving you realistic ideas about where you’re going to get the biggest return on your investment.

And giving you that that ‘wow’ factor right? We see so many patchwork homes where I’m like ‘oh I love the floors you did’ and then I get to the kitchen and realize and you did two more floors because there wasn’t a pre-thought out pattern as to how this was all going to link and I’m not suggesting that everyone has to come in and do it all at once you know? But at least if the plans there and they know the kitchens gonna be step one. Flooring step two. However the process works it’s nice to know there’s continuity and when we go to sell it and you’ve spent $50,000 on Brazilian hardwood but you didn’t do anything else yeah it’s hard for me to get that return. Totally right. Totally.

You know when we also can look at a space come into a space and say wow you know if you just spent ten thousand dollars and did painted your cabinets switched out your backsplash and did your hardware it’s gonna feel like a totally new space. So you know depending on how much money people want to spend and how long they’re going to be in their home something I love to do is to help them you know have a five-year solution or you know a forever home. Really whatever it is they want to achieve help them make sure that their space, client space really is a reflection of who they are and really helps them to live better. Because at the end of the day good design is really improving your life and improving the way you live in your home.

Well you improved our lives. Everyone loves our home and says it’s a great reflection of us. I’m so happy. And we did, we were smart and saved for the big plan and you put the whole piece together and it does it still allows us to add pieces on to it but our base plan is so easy to work from that it just makes our home all congruent it’s so nice. I hope you can help many of our clients come with that big picture image and move forward and you know have a serene look to their home that makes them feel comfortable.

Thanks Andrea!

No problem.

Good afternoon! Sarah here. We’ve traded our Starbucks for a fresh cold pressed juice at freshii. I’m here with Sim, Owner of the freshii restaurant in north Burlington.

Hello everyone! I am Sim G, franchise partner for freshii at Appleby crossing. We offer healthy breakfast, lunch and dinner please come visit us, we’re looking forward to seeing you at the store. We’ve been hearing a lot of topics about this restaurant, we see a lot of happy people coming in. It’s a pretty cool location, being in our square here. It’s a really neat take on a quick lunch, or a quick dinner, but with a great healthy vibe.

What got you interested in freshii to become its owner?

I was investing with, working with one of the banks when I started looking into freshii in 2011, ever since I’ve been following up with freshii, I am a fitness freak, I do a lot of my meal preps before coming into freshii. It’s one of the cleanest restaurants, quick meal, healthy options we have and a lot of variety. It’s not like you’re eating everyday the same thing. So we have wraps, salads, bowls, burritos, so they’re all healthy. We have rice, rice noodles, as a base or you can quinoa, which is full of protein and full of amino acids. Those are the things that when I always wanted to own something on my own when I really drilled down to, ok where would I be happy going to and where I would actually eat myself. Freshii stood out and definitely some stuff worked out and I’m here! One of the busiest intersections and I’m happy to be here in the community.

Well it’s amazing because I know January, we all jump on the get healthy wagon and it feels like you’re eating salad after salad so some of the opportunities here to try so many different things maybe that you wouldn’t try at home or buy from grocery store, it’s a great opportunity to get healthy on a great, tasty menu. We’re so excited that you are here in the north end and we’ve heard so many great things about the restaurant, we really encourage you to come out and try freshii. We love it, you can catch us here anytime having a quick lunch and Sim is a great person to ask for as our owner here, she can run you through the menu and some of the dietary restrictions.

Thanks so much!

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Morning Sarah here. I’m taking my Starbucks with the dear Natalie Robinson of Set The Stage and we’re going to talk about home staging. Nat thanks for joining me here in my kitchen. I appreciate you coming to talk to us about staging, I know there’s some differences between staging and design and you’re truly a stager. I had the pleasure of working with you for almost years and you’ve probably done thousands and thousands of our clients homes.

So lots of people know your face and know your stuff, give us the impression though so many people are nervous when I say we’re gonna stage your house what is the difference of staging versus design? What’s the goal?

Great question, Sarah. I guess the biggest difference is when it’s your home you’re trying to personalize it, it’s your family, you’re proud of your your children and maybe you don’t have some fabulous art that you’ve collected on the trip, but for staging we want to make the space look welcoming for everyone. Everyone’s taste sort of deep personalizing neutralizing the space you don’t want to lose the charm or the feeling of a home because I think a lot of people think, “Oh staging they’re going to make it look cold and you know sparse and and unrealistic” but I feel like there’s a line between making a home look presentable and marketable with not losing that ‘wow’ factor that we try to create.

It’s so true because our clients are always impressed once you leave, they feel like their house is going to be almost naked when you’re done with it because we’ve told them to remove so much. But you do such an incredible job and we hear the feedback from our buyers and sellers that we keep the home feel well presenting attributes of the house and staging is truly about retailing the home it’s no longer your personal home right. So the end goal of staging I always try to present to people is we’re selling your house not your things.

Absolutely. I have sometimes pushback there because they’re like but you know this artist is this much or these chairs I picked and I’m, and I know you know, it’s about making the house look presentable for every one of the highlights of the home, the the features, the upgrades that they’ve spent money on you know? I want them to notice the staircase and the backsplash and the hardwood not you know the knickknacks or the tchotchkes as you like to call them that stuff’s not stained it’s leaving. So we still want to make them fall in love with the idea of the house but not focus things that really don’t add any value to the home.

Perfect so what would you recommend to someone preparing we get a lot of people getting geared up for January/February you know to get ready for the market before you come in? What could I do as a homeowner to prep my house?

Things like neutralizing your space you know fresh linens, fresh towels, if you can provide those things that would be wonderful white shower curtain anything that can fit in your hand that’s a good rule of thumb we say if it’s if it’s fits in your hand we probably aren’t going to keep it. Our biggest thing is we focus on photography and and how that is going to look in you know five second MLS video. The camera sometimes will highlight the small things or the bold colors rather than showing off you know your beautiful cabinetry or your hardwood all those things that we want to highlight. Having something small or bold red in the corner it’s going to take that away from from the overall shot. It’s so true we have buyers that will be searching realtor.com seamlessly there, “I want to see the purple house”.

Right, I think oh wow if they just painted that purple wall you know to a great new tone of gray just we’ve been growing it it wouldn’t be memorable as the purple. Absolutely. Deep personalizing is huge. I mean if you can take a few minutes and you know pack up and the thing is you’re moving so the more you do ahead of time I feel like the homeowner, yes it’s a lot of work up front, but they are very pleased at the end because like wow I’m actually like pretty much packed up ready to go and better than you the homeowner packs their things I know I don’t want to take a risk of breaking somebody’s precious things. Right now I’m great grandmothers were exactly, the other thing is when when you have family photos in the home yes they’re beautiful for the family because it’s your space, but the homeowner you know they’re gonna be stopping people join do I know that person? Do my kids go to preschool? So you know just trying to make the place more neutral and welcoming for everyone.

Yeah so I guess the bottom line is you’ve got to remember when you’re selling your home you’re not selling exactly to your imprint you’re selling to a huge group of nationalities, age groups, different people to see your house in a different light. So staging truly works we know 78% of homes that are staged sell faster according to National Association Realtors and I think it’s worth it to present your house in the best light. Absolutely.

So before you step out the door and put a for sale sign on your house, contact Natalie or contact us, we can put you into contact with Natalie and get your house off on the right page. Right neat, clean, neutral clean. That’s a great point clean is if you didn’t do anything that I’m asking you know if they can’t do the fresh linens you can’t do the towels, please just, yeah clean is number one probably and keeping it smelling fresh but not perfumed or personal is a great tip as well people definitely appreciate a clean home.

So to get started, if you need tips on prepping your home for sale you’ve done a great handout for our clients we’re happy to share it with anyone who needs it and thanks so much. Great to see you Sarah. Thank you.

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Is it time to invest? You want to jump into the real estate market, have you been sitting on some equity that you need to maybe move around? We have a great option for you as becoming a real estate investor. I have a special guest speaker with me today that’s gonna take us through some of the pitfalls and highs of investing in real estate. For all the details check us out at teamlogue.ca.

Hi name’s Miles Kulik mortgage broker with The Mortgage Group servicing over 2,500 clients over the last number of years and we’re looking forward to helping those investment clients that are available today. Morning Sarah here. I’m having my morning Starbucks with Myles a fabulous financial advisor a mortgage broker and we’re here to talk a little bit about investing. We have a lot of questions from our clients about how they can buy a rental property or an investment property there’s a lot of changes in our mortgage rules these days and a lot of variables that we’re facing with in the financial world of Ontario and buying and investing in real estate. So I’ve asked Miles to give us sort of some of the fear factors and some of the jump off points that people should consider before jumping in and just making that purchase.

As Sarah said there is that basically get your ducks in order it’s kind of there we’ve talked about that for a long time now but as rules have changed and the markets change it’s never been as important and we always say meet with someone financial advisor, mortgage broker to sit down and go over where do I stand today and build a plan you know we always call, I call it the roadmap to success you know when you’re building going on a trip you want to have your roadmap upfront and that’s the the key ingredient to success in the investment marketplace today. Sit down early and go over the math in front of you and making sure that you’re building that budget or business you know for success in the future.

So we have clients always say to us, “Sarah we own this property we have this much equity in this property can we easily take the equity out and buy say townhomes say condo like fabulous condo?” like this where we’re getting people to buy a new build can they easily take that equity out to buy the next property? You’re giving the equity other property is available to them there’s multiple ways to do it and it is easy there are ways to do it the nice opportunities are really people look at what they call lines of credits and basically what happens is that they have equity in the home they’re allowed to leverage up to 80% of that property towards a line of credit sometimes they take a mortgage sometimes it’s purely interest only it’s really how they want to organize that get out of that property.

Ok so what are some of the immediate changes that have affected people to getting that liquidity maybe as fast as we used to be able to get the equity. So as everything as the pendulum swings in different directions and definitely swung in one direction to make it a bit more difficult from the qualification perspective what’s happening now is we’re now seeing lenders change the criteria of how they calculate the debt and previously it was balance only. Right now they’re looking at limits and so that does come into play when we’re calculating what they call the total debt service which is basically all your debts combined.

“How much do I qualify for?” What we want to look at is you know what is the limit right how is that affecting us but the key ingredient to that though also is looking at the entire market who’s offering what to me? Where do I qualify for a certain percentage with different institution and making sure you’re looking at market read versus what institutions written and I think just to clarify that for people you should be shopping lenders and that’s why we always refer people to you. Yes all those lenders are really determined who’s offering the best package for what you’re trying to accomplish.

Yeah most definitely and again at one point I’m vanilla ice cream was you know is everywhere it was all over the place now we’re looking at we call it Neapolitan you know what I mean and I like to relate everything to food I love food so you know looking at it is that everyone’s offering a bit different and I really want what is the best for you and that’s the opportunity that you should.

Well we really appreciate the help that you provide our clients and guiding them and I think if anyone’s investing in real estate they should obviously hire professional mortgage broker to shop the best positioning for them.

With regards to do you have put more cash down, less cash down, what did your rental ratio and then obviously hire a professional agent right? Most definitely. Most definitely. We were talking with that just a little bit ago you know? Go to someone who actually is in the game, you know someone who invests in real estate, someone who’s invested in real estate in the past you know? They have the experience, not just the open the book and what is it gonna tell me is someone who’s actually felt maybe a little bit of pain to you know?

Yeah most definitely.

I think that real life experience has so much more value than just looking at what would it tell me in the book here. Absolutely we’re constantly trying to position our clients again great equity climb where they’re buying fabulous renters but to understand that it is it’s a long-term gain. Yes most definitely and you know and the point that you made a great point without even maybe the Americans but someone who that says, hey I can find the property I’ll put you in the right path with a very financial people I can help you look to lease to the right people give you the pitfalls of a renter you know what to look for what not to look for in a renter. That’s a full package and that’s that’s more so than just finding a home and then walking away from the product right. It’s a great time to be invested it’s more balanced is easier to buy a product right so we encourage our clients to get out there and start looking.

Never a better time than when the market is maybe a balanced situation versus I’m rushing into something, maybe the price is a little bit more than what the cash flow can get. A balanced market to me would say now I can find the right rental income to offset that debt. I have on a balanced market. Alright so it makes a lot of sense at this point we definitely have more properties available and more renters available so it’s time to be an investor. Most definitely.

Thank you so much your help today, I appreciate it. You’re welcome. Thank you.

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Sarah here. We’re going to take a morning Starbucks with Darren Sanger-Smith at Structured Creations a fabulous designer taking an uplift to many old homes. He puts on beautiful faces to homes within the city providing character within character subdivisions. If you’re looking for your next project or how to renovate  your home Darren has great ideas.

I am Darren Singer Smith owner of Structured Creations for a residential design firm, boutique residential design firm and in business for just over 15 years. Thanks for having us in, very cool office right downtown, very your style I love all the accent pieces  we’re very fortunate that so many of our clients have had the pleasure of using  your design services and the incredible things that you make some of these scary houses turn into. Our clients are always impressed at what you come up with,  we really appreciate it.

So give me an idea of some of the problems or some of the neat projects that come into your hands and what you do for our clients  and for you know, other people looking for great design ideas.

One of the things we find is that renovations  up make them bigger they become very costly  because you almost turn the whole house apart right so sometimes it’s  better just to take it right down to the deck. So the big confusion of trying to  get clients to understand cost benefits, right piecing a puzzle back together or just taking apart, building brand-new. So that’s one big puzzle and then the next big step is teaching and educating clients on the level of design and detail that we can get into. Some of the details outstanding.

I  mean I personally love the detail you added to our house and I wouldn’t let  you tear it down. I love the style. So I’m one of those clients but the detail you added really facelifted it basically into this era and it looks incredible, but it didn’t stretch so far to take it out of the design in the  neighborhood. So I love that you look at the surrounding and don’t obviously put  in something doesn’t fit within the community and that’s that’s really important too.

So you know part of that decision on taking ours down and upgrading it is what the environment is, I mean is it sensitive to all those houses around you right? You know it’s not necessary to build the monster home and a house in a neighborhood that’s filled with  beautiful little bungalows so there’s a balance but it is comes down to budgeting. Housing that doesn’t design and budget together – and that’s  why we always recommend that people meet with our professional services to make sure that the budget works that they don’t make a number of mistakes that are gonna be costly and at the end, results are satisfying and that’s the biggest thing with the services that we try and provide.

The level of drawings is the key right? Right. If you’ve got a really really thorough detailed instruction  manual you’re gonna get a very very thorough detailed construction. Perfect. So that’s that’s the key to it so if someone’s looking to find a certain  neighborhood that they must be in and they want a certain house style that they must have this is a good starting point. Correct. Absolutely. Okay great. I appreciate the information. Look forward to our next project!